Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, via fam, it is Mandra back with another
Speaker 1: episode of Brown Ambition. Today's guest, y'all, is incredibly special.
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to speak with Today's guests last week,
Speaker 1: and I knew from that conversation that I was like,
Speaker 1: you have to be on Brown Ambition. And this is
Speaker 1: how quickly I made it happen. Okay, within one week,
Speaker 1: I have her on the show, and I am so
Speaker 1: excited to bring today's guest to you. Her name is
Speaker 1: Deepa Pershathaman. She is I don't even You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to bear with me because this woman's accolades and titles
Speaker 1: are just they go on for miles and miles and miles.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to fight my own imposter syndrome and
Speaker 1: explain a little bit to y'all about who my new
Speaker 1: friend Depa is. Okay, Not only is Depa the co
Speaker 1: founder of her own company called Information, which provides brave
Speaker 1: safe space for professional women of color to advance in
Speaker 1: their careers, she is also a women in Public Policy
Speaker 1: program leader in practice at Harvard Kennedy's School. You may
Speaker 1: have heard of it. Prior to that, Deepa spent more
Speaker 1: than twenty years in Corporate America at Deloitte, and she
Speaker 1: was the first Indian American woman to make partner in
Speaker 1: the company's history history and with Deepa's deep knowledge of
Speaker 1: what it means to be one of the first, one
Speaker 1: of the few, one of the only, she wrote a
Speaker 1: beautiful book which you guys have to go pick up.
Speaker 1: It just was released earlier this month. Go find her
Speaker 1: new book. It's called The First, the Only, How Women
Speaker 1: of Color can Redefine power in Corporate America. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's out right now. Go to the show notes, you
Speaker 1: can download your copy, you can pick up the book.
Speaker 1: We have to support. I'm telling you, when women of
Speaker 1: color publish books, I think it is all of our
Speaker 1: duty to go and purchase them so that other women
Speaker 1: of color can get book deals. Right. So, in this book,
Speaker 1: which is so unique, Deepa chronicles over five hundred interviews
Speaker 1: with women of color, women who were not just people
Speaker 1: of color in corporate America, but their own version of
Speaker 1: the first, the fuse or the onlies in corporate America
Speaker 1: and Dipa in her book talks about why it's finally
Speaker 1: time to stop glamorizing women of color leaders in corporate America.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, and how we can start dismantling
Speaker 1: those outdated power structures so that only a few of
Speaker 1: us seem to be able to make it, and how
Speaker 1: that few can become many instead. So thank you so
Speaker 1: much for letting me brag on you, DIPA.
Speaker 2: I know, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Comfortable to listen to your own bio. But I was like,
Speaker 1: you're going to listen to it? Oh, but you did it,
Speaker 1: you survived. Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to chat with you. I just feel
Speaker 2: like we have so many things to talk about right now, so.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into it. First. Few only different. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you and I intimately as well as our audience,
Speaker 1: knows what that is like, knows how isolating it can feel.
Speaker 1: But I love and you know where I think you
Speaker 1: and I have in common. One of the many things
Speaker 1: is that we were able to thrive in corporate America
Speaker 1: in spite of being one of the few. You know,
Speaker 1: first only difference in our world, And I know, I
Speaker 1: feel like what was so isolating was that within your
Speaker 1: company there weren't many people who look like you to
Speaker 1: turn to. But as soon as I sort of opened
Speaker 1: up to meeting the first few only difference outside of
Speaker 1: my company, and you know, started to open myself up
Speaker 1: to building those relationships. I was like, Okay, it feels
Speaker 1: like I'm alone, but I'm not alone. How important is
Speaker 1: it to you and like in your messaging in the
Speaker 1: book for women of color, for us to like find
Speaker 1: support among one another.
Speaker 2: I think it's game changing. It's probably the most important
Speaker 2: thing we can do. And my own story is similar
Speaker 2: to yours. So I spent three years knowing it was
Speaker 2: time to leave, and we can come back to all
Speaker 2: the reasons why, but I knew it was time to leave,
Speaker 2: and I struggled as a first. I struggled because I
Speaker 2: felt like if I left, it would represent not only
Speaker 2: potentially badly on me and my own challenges, and mine
Speaker 2: wore health related, so it wasn't even you know, a
Speaker 2: capability issue in that sort of sense. But I also
Speaker 2: worry that it would reflect on other women of color
Speaker 2: coming after me. So I sat in my knowing I
Speaker 2: wanted to leave, and probably being unhappy for a little
Speaker 2: while just for that reason. And so in an attempt
Speaker 2: to figure out what to do, I started meeting with
Speaker 2: women of color because to your point, there weren't a
Speaker 2: lot in my company. There were hardly any ahead of me,
Speaker 2: and so it started one on one eventually turned into
Speaker 2: two person, three person dinners, and then at one point
Speaker 2: my now business partner who was then my coach, and
Speaker 2: I did about a dozen dinners across the country where
Speaker 2: I met three hundred senior women of color, and that
Speaker 2: was game changing. That was liberation because we would get
Speaker 2: in these rooms, I thought for an hour or two
Speaker 2: to network, and I'm not exaggerating, six seven, eight hours
Speaker 2: later we were still you know, drinking wine, having chocolate,
Speaker 2: talking because we had all the same stories, but we
Speaker 2: had never met each other to talk about it, and
Speaker 2: so many of us, to your point, were isolated. So
Speaker 2: for me, that gave me almost permission to go back
Speaker 2: and leave my role and also started, you know, the
Speaker 2: book and the work that I do now. But I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us are isolated, and we think
Speaker 2: so much of what's happening to us is us right,
Speaker 2: or it's our you know, deficiencies are insecurities, and what
Speaker 2: we realize from meeting others is it's not us, it's
Speaker 2: the system. And that I cannot tell you a freeing
Speaker 2: that is so so important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm wondering why I wasn't invited to any of
Speaker 1: these dinners. I'm incredibly jealous.
Speaker 2: You will be next time. Yes, it was, honestly, it's
Speaker 2: a great quat. It was. It was word of mouth.
Speaker 2: It was like friends of friends are through LinkedIn, and
Speaker 2: that's the other challenge, by the way, like there isn't
Speaker 2: a roster, it's sometimes hard to find each other and
Speaker 2: so and we're also taught not to reach out to people,
Speaker 2: right that if you don't know people, everyone's busy and
Speaker 2: you don't want to bother them. And I think the
Speaker 2: last few years have shown us we need community and
Speaker 2: it's okay to reach out to people you don't know
Speaker 2: and to make new friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a thousand percent. And I'm I'm the work that
Speaker 1: you do with information, it was sort of it was
Speaker 1: also I feel like for you or maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: speaking for myself, but it was an answer to that
Speaker 1: lack that need, you know, can I build what I feel?
Speaker 1: I feel like I could. I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have had while I was coming out moving through the things.
Speaker 2: I mean, Information was really kind of an outgrowth of
Speaker 2: the dinners where we would end the you know again,
Speaker 2: literally in the parking lots at three o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 2: and then women would say, this is the best thing
Speaker 2: I've been to, Like, when are you doing this again? Obviously,
Speaker 2: the business model and the whole plan had, you know,
Speaker 2: turned on its head with COVID and George Floyd's murder
Speaker 2: really changed how we talk about race at work and
Speaker 2: all of that together, so we to rethink how that
Speaker 2: would what that would look like is at one point
Speaker 2: we thought it might be just dinners, right, like some
Speaker 2: sort of sequence of coming back, and it's all gone
Speaker 2: virtual online and it's a very different format. But it
Speaker 2: came out of that need to want to continue the
Speaker 2: discussions and really bring together women so that we're not
Speaker 2: we're not struggling in the ways that we're struggling and
Speaker 2: isolated and facing a lot of the trauma I think
Speaker 2: on our own, which we shouldn't have to do. But
Speaker 2: we haven't had space to talk about that before.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean obviously you work with companies.
Speaker 1: I mean that's part of your work is helping companies
Speaker 1: figure out how to do how to make how to
Speaker 1: change those systems that can make it so difficult for
Speaker 1: women like us to thrive, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's also for me. It's about showing
Speaker 1: that sometimes companies, like we put too much expectation on
Speaker 1: them to get it right in a way like, of
Speaker 1: course they have the resources, and you want women to succeed,
Speaker 1: so here's what you should do. But I love about
Speaker 1: information and just your own work. Was what if we
Speaker 1: create our own spaces and we find our own places
Speaker 1: where we can feel safe. For me, it was also
Speaker 1: really liberating to start doing that on my own, and
Speaker 1: I don't think if I hadn't. Just like you, sometimes
Speaker 1: you just can't wait for them to get it right
Speaker 1: because some of us, like time is not necessarily something
Speaker 1: that we have an abundance, especially when you're when you're
Speaker 1: trying to move through your career. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: going to take companies years and years and years. If
Speaker 1: they they just started in twenty twenty, whoo, it's going
Speaker 1: to take them on a long time to start getting
Speaker 1: it right. So in the meantime, it's about like, how
Speaker 1: can I find resources like information or my own you know,
Speaker 1: coaching program or whatever program may be close to you,
Speaker 1: But where can you find community, like your community of
Speaker 1: peers to lean on for support so that you don't
Speaker 1: get burnt out, exhausted and leave.
Speaker 2: I also think companies sometimes, you know, I feel like
Speaker 2: we're in a moment, and I don't think all companies
Speaker 2: are the same, right there is a lot There are
Speaker 2: a lot of companies in you and I've talked about
Speaker 2: this doing performative work where they're not even really able
Speaker 2: to do the hard lifting is they don't even know
Speaker 2: what that is. But I think other companies want to
Speaker 2: do better. But I mean same sort of situation. They
Speaker 2: don't really know what to do, and so I think
Speaker 2: that's why a lot of us are solving it outside
Speaker 2: of the structures and the systems, because we know for
Speaker 2: them to catch up. I'm not saying they can't ever
Speaker 2: do it, but it's not a safe space right now.
Speaker 2: They don't know how to hold the space. They don't
Speaker 2: know how to have the conversations. And in some cases
Speaker 2: what we're talking about is directly in the face of
Speaker 2: the things that they worry about, right like we are
Speaker 2: talking about things like racism. And from a legal perspective,
Speaker 2: a lot of the structures and a lot of the
Speaker 2: system has been set up to protect the company and
Speaker 2: so it's just they don't know what to do. So
Speaker 2: we need a lot of the processes and a lot
Speaker 2: of the culture to change. And so I think while
Speaker 2: we're waiting, folks like you and I are trying to
Speaker 2: figure it out and trying to provide the support and
Speaker 2: hopefully the companies will catch up. Case they don't, we
Speaker 2: also have resources and ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about, like if you
Speaker 1: could pinpoint I don't know one or two examples of
Speaker 1: processes at companies that are creating these situations where more
Speaker 1: women of color are not reaching the upper echelons at
Speaker 1: their companies, Like what would some of those be that
Speaker 1: you would love to see just dismantled?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the biggest one is just the reporting
Speaker 2: processes for racism. So I have a you know, I
Speaker 2: talked to a number of women and this is the
Speaker 2: most shocking part. So I talked to a number of
Speaker 2: different women on all levels, but the most senior women
Speaker 2: kept telling me the same stories over and over again.
Speaker 2: So a lot of them felt like they had been
Speaker 2: taught I will, you know, maybe compromise on certain things.
Speaker 2: I will maybe show up a certain way, I will
Speaker 2: maybe conform. But once I get to the seat, I'll
Speaker 2: do it differently. And the challenge was a lot of
Speaker 2: those women, once they got to the senior seats, they
Speaker 2: found less ability to do it their way because there
Speaker 2: was more pressure to kind of get along and toe
Speaker 2: the line and do what the company was expecting them
Speaker 2: to do. And the place where I found it the
Speaker 2: most shocking was literally in reporting races. So there's about
Speaker 2: eight women that I spoke with again VP level and above,
Speaker 2: who told me they ended up leaving their industries, leaving
Speaker 2: their companies because they reported a case of incident of racism,
Speaker 2: whether it was them or you know, someone they witnessed,
Speaker 2: and the company didn't appreciate them doing that, even though
Speaker 2: they for all of the protocols, even though they followed
Speaker 2: the rules, because a company all of a sudden felt
Speaker 2: like they were liable right or they were you know,
Speaker 2: legally could be held responsible. So it was almost as
Speaker 2: if the woman who was trying to tell her truth
Speaker 2: and improved the culture all of a sudden became kind
Speaker 2: of the lightning rod or the problem, and it was
Speaker 2: story after story after story. So I think, you know,
Speaker 2: at the highest level, at the simplest level, I think
Speaker 2: we need new processes and new ways we report racism.
Speaker 2: The reporting doesn't work. And also the people sitting in
Speaker 2: the seats taking in the stories, what I found is
Speaker 2: a lot of them are white leaders, and they don't
Speaker 2: necessarily understand racism. So there's a lot of back and
Speaker 2: forth with that. It's not that bad, and I don't
Speaker 2: really know what you're talking about. And so sometimes in
Speaker 2: those cases, what I'm hearing is we need outside folks
Speaker 2: to do that work. We need outside representatives, we need
Speaker 2: outside investigators until companies can kind of catch up, put
Speaker 2: the right people in the seats and understand what to do.
Speaker 2: So it's not a legal liable issue, it's a different
Speaker 2: sort of conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really doesn't feel safe to go to HR
Speaker 1: anymore at all. It hasn't for a long time. There's
Speaker 1: this lack of trust. And if companies think, okay, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty happened, and you have a bunch of town halls
Speaker 1: or group webinars or group zooms where you kind of
Speaker 1: let you just like color, people of color, tell us
Speaker 1: how you're feeling. If you've got you know, senior leaders
Speaker 1: who are attending those calls, and for half an hour
Speaker 1: listening to people, and then oh, what doesn't seem that
Speaker 1: bad people here seem to you know, but they don't
Speaker 1: trust you enough to actually tell the truth in that
Speaker 1: half hour zoom session. The trust isn't there. And I
Speaker 1: think that you've touched on that, you know, in a
Speaker 1: way that I'm just like, oh, that makes sense. You
Speaker 1: know what if we take that reporting structure outside of
Speaker 1: the company and we say you don't have to trust
Speaker 1: your manager or HR to handle your complaint, We're gonna
Speaker 1: give it to this third party, and then maybe it's
Speaker 1: even anonymized in some way, I don't know, but make
Speaker 1: us feel safer putting our next out there, because it's
Speaker 1: it's not a lot of upside, as you as you've
Speaker 1: seen in your work, not a lot of upside being
Speaker 1: the squeaky wheel sometimes. And you may think when you
Speaker 1: get to a more senior level, like you said, it
Speaker 1: gets easier, like your voice has more weight. But I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think back now. Once I got to like
Speaker 1: the senior director level and I was on track to
Speaker 1: become a VP, the expectation immediately. I remember when I
Speaker 1: was I asked my manager at the time, my boss's boss, like,
Speaker 1: so I want to become a VP. What's what do
Speaker 1: I what do I gotta do? Tell me how it works?
Speaker 1: And one of the you know, one of the I
Speaker 1: forget how many parts of the plan to get me
Speaker 1: on the VP track, but one of them was demonstrating
Speaker 1: that I could work with the other department heads and
Speaker 1: creating projects and one by one it was a white
Speaker 1: dude after a white dude, and learning how to deal
Speaker 1: with those personalities and and and work in those rooms
Speaker 1: and to feel like in order for me to get ahead,
Speaker 1: they had to endorse me. You know, it made it
Speaker 1: even more challenging, like this is not my target audience,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I had found my
Speaker 1: safe space, and I had and I had gotten very
Speaker 1: far in in my corner of the company. But when
Speaker 1: I had to start reaching outward to those other department heads,
Speaker 1: it was it was then when I was like feeling
Speaker 1: that sense of do I belong here? Do I want
Speaker 1: to be here? Is this really where I want? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And then we get to the
Speaker 1: feelings of guilt, like you said, when you are the
Speaker 1: only one and it's time and you realize it's time
Speaker 1: for you to move on. So can you talk about
Speaker 1: that when we realize it's no longer where we want
Speaker 1: to be, how do you what kind of advice do
Speaker 1: you have for women who are thinking, well, shoot, if
Speaker 1: it's not me, who's going to be here to champion?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Women of color here represent us.
Speaker 2: I think the most surprising thing I found in all
Speaker 2: the women and I can continue to work with is
Speaker 2: our sense of responsibility. And it's deep, and it's there
Speaker 2: for women who even may think it's not there. And
Speaker 2: responsibility to our communities, to our families.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I interviewed a lot of immigrant women, for example, and
Speaker 2: I mean, my parents are immigrants to this country, and
Speaker 2: the story of sacrifice right and how much my parents
Speaker 2: gave up was like a constant topic of conversation. So
Speaker 2: that sense of responsibility is different for different groups, but
Speaker 2: it's really ingrained, I think for a lot of the
Speaker 2: women of color I interviewed, and so a lot of
Speaker 2: them will realize, I think somewhat, you know, halfway through,
Speaker 2: let's just call it halfway through, that this is maybe
Speaker 2: not a culture that I can thrive in, This is
Speaker 2: not maybe working for me, But I got to continue pushing,
Speaker 2: and a lot of women of color, I think struggle
Speaker 2: because we've one been told to be grateful for the opportunity,
Speaker 2: and so we're confused. I think, to your point, we
Speaker 2: feel guilty. I think a lot of us feel like
Speaker 2: our work is getting to the seat and opening it
Speaker 2: up for others, and you know, what does that really
Speaker 2: mean for us personally? And a lot of us have
Speaker 2: been taught to sacrifice, and so I think it's all
Speaker 2: really difficult. For me, it came down to I had
Speaker 2: known for a while that the lifestyle that I had
Speaker 2: was not conducive for me. So I started to get sick.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a very long story short, and I
Speaker 2: don't mean, you know, small small things. I mean every
Speaker 2: week it was like a new symptom, to the point
Speaker 2: that I was probably dealing with twenty or thirty symptoms.
Speaker 2: I'd been to fourteen doctors. I tell a story in
Speaker 2: the book. I've been to fourteen doctors, and they all
Speaker 2: agreed there was something wrong with me. You know, some
Speaker 2: of them related it to age. I turned forty, like
Speaker 2: maybe that's what had happened, but they agreed something was happening.
Speaker 2: And I was at my fourteenth doctor and she looked
Speaker 2: at me and she said, we can keep running tests,
Speaker 2: or I can tell you what I think you already know.
Speaker 2: And when I tell the story, I always say like
Speaker 2: I had brought my suitcase to the appointment because I
Speaker 2: was a doctor. I saw when I traveled, because I
Speaker 2: lived on a plane, I did three cities a week
Speaker 2: in the nature of the job that I had. And
Speaker 2: so she's already judging me, like, why is this woman
Speaker 2: bringing her suitcase to a doctor's appointment? And she said,
Speaker 2: I really think your job is making you ill. I
Speaker 2: think your job is killing you. I think you need
Speaker 2: to really do something else. My fourteenth doctor, and you know,
Speaker 2: doctor I saw when I traveled, And she asked me
Speaker 2: three life change of questions that were profound, I think
Speaker 2: for anybody, but I think especially for women of color.
Speaker 2: She said, what would you do if you didn't do
Speaker 2: a big job like this? Her second question to me
Speaker 2: was do you feel like you have to do a
Speaker 2: big job to be worthy? And her third question was
Speaker 2: don't you see your worthy being you? And I think
Speaker 2: part of my struggle was I'd been taught that, you know,
Speaker 2: some of my worthiness, a lot of my worthiness came
Speaker 2: from performing, came from doing more, came from showing up
Speaker 2: came from succeeding. That was a lot of what I
Speaker 2: had been taught, I think, especially from my immigrant family,
Speaker 2: and it was a real struggle to walk away from
Speaker 2: that life, to walk away from the security of what
Speaker 2: that brought, and to really question. This is something I
Speaker 2: still want to do. And the most shocking thing of
Speaker 2: all of the women I spoke with is I think
Speaker 2: a lot of us are sick in ways that we
Speaker 2: don't talk about. So two out of three women of
Speaker 2: color I interviewed were sick with these what I call
Speaker 2: mysterious symptoms, right, so stomach pains, skin rashes, headaches, fertility issues,
Speaker 2: adrena fatigue, and I have a long list, but they
Speaker 2: are these things that I I think are these growing symptoms,
Speaker 2: but things that doctors can dismiss and tell us they're
Speaker 2: not that big a deal, but they really affect us
Speaker 2: and a lot of what I believe, and I talk
Speaker 2: to a number of doctors, I think it comes from
Speaker 2: not being seen and heard in systems, from not really
Speaker 2: feeling supported, and to your point, from adapting and fitting
Speaker 2: in and staying longer than we should. So I think
Speaker 2: these are really important conversations we have to have, like
Speaker 2: when do you stay, and when do you go? When
Speaker 2: is a culture not working for you? And when is
Speaker 2: it causing more trauma or harm? And when is it
Speaker 2: okay to give yourself permission to walk away? I think
Speaker 2: those are real big questions for women of color.
Speaker 1: Ah God, I can't imagine how terrifying that must be
Speaker 1: to feel like all these the physical manifestation of that isolation,
Speaker 1: and you know the fact that our work really can
Speaker 1: make us ill. I remember my mom. My mom had suffered,
Speaker 1: you know, she was a single mom for a long
Speaker 1: time and it was always very stressful. She you know,
Speaker 1: the end of her career came from like an illness
Speaker 1: that was really tied to mental strain, and it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: twenty years of you grinding out to make things work,
Speaker 1: and your body has revolted. So it's not even a
Speaker 1: matter of sometimes just it's about our physical safety too
Speaker 1: as much as our mental safety. To recognize that. All right,
Speaker 1: I am loving this conversation with our incredible guests, Deep
Speaker 1: Up per shot them on. I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. I will be right back with Deeper And
Speaker 1: by the way, do not forget to check out her website.
Speaker 1: It's Deepaperu dot com. Check the show notes for a
Speaker 1: link to get her book and find out all about information.
Speaker 1: We will be right back all right, ba fam, I
Speaker 1: am back with my guests today. Deep up, heer shot
Speaker 1: them on. Here we go, Let's get back to our conversation.
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the things that has to
Speaker 1: happen too to make you feel safe, excuse me, and
Speaker 1: a decision to leave is even to recognize I mean
Speaker 1: leaving for you as entrepreneurship and writing a book and
Speaker 1: all of that, and hopefully a really long vacation hopefully
Speaker 1: took some time off the rest.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I said eight months in bebt, so my
Speaker 2: symptoms actually grew to a point where I couldn't listen anymore.
Speaker 2: It sounds like similar to your mother, where my body
Speaker 2: was just screaming like get out, it's time because I
Speaker 2: wasn't listening right, It was my entire identity And it
Speaker 2: took me a long time to leave because of that
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility. But yeah, I did take a break.
Speaker 1: And it was hard for me as her daughter to
Speaker 1: even see her like that, and even for my own mind,
Speaker 1: like mom is not okay, but she's always okay. We
Speaker 1: always just pushed through it. Was really challenging. That's like
Speaker 1: a whole other topic for another show. Yes it is,
Speaker 1: but absolutely, but even to hear stories from women who
Speaker 1: are experiencing a joyful work environment, who are thriving, and
Speaker 1: to see that there are opportunities elsewhere. It does not
Speaker 1: have to be this way everywhere, and that there's examples.
Speaker 1: And that's where it comes back to, like getting to
Speaker 1: know other people, other women, especially you know in your industry,
Speaker 1: who are working places and look for the ones who
Speaker 1: are happy and thriving and see how you can get
Speaker 1: there because it may it may not be you, it
Speaker 1: may be the culture that you're in, but you can
Speaker 1: rescue yourself, you know, and get yourself out of it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like, you know, our mutual friend now
Speaker 1: I can call her friend, Rachika Tolshian. She was on
Speaker 1: the show a couple of weeks ago, and she and
Speaker 1: I were talking about how, you know, it is that
Speaker 1: perception that I have to just grin and bear it.
Speaker 1: You know that this is what it's going to be,
Speaker 1: so let's just get used to it. But no, no,
Speaker 1: you can get out and there's other places. It may
Speaker 1: not be entrepreneurship, like it's not for everyone, but like,
Speaker 1: what are the signs you know, if you were going
Speaker 1: back into corporate America. Now, I know that you're not
Speaker 1: on that path right now, but if you were, what
Speaker 1: would you be looking for? You know, signs that this
Speaker 1: is a safe space for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of my pieces of advice is to reach
Speaker 2: out to people. I mean, similar to what we did
Speaker 2: for the dinners, where we just called called people or
Speaker 2: message people on LinkedIn. I think it's okay, and we're
Speaker 2: seeing more women of I'm seeing more women of color
Speaker 2: do this to just reach out to people at the
Speaker 2: company at their level below more senior, and just say
Speaker 2: is this a woman of color friendly place? And people
Speaker 2: often ask me like, well, people tell them. I think
Speaker 2: now people will you know, like don't come here right now,
Speaker 2: or that department is notorious, So ask like ask, you know,
Speaker 2: ask your sisters. I think we'll share more. I also
Speaker 2: think looking at you know, traditional places like glassdoor and
Speaker 2: other places where there reviews and there's more online information
Speaker 2: than there has ever been before, and I think that's
Speaker 2: okay to ask as well. I think also talking about
Speaker 2: the resources you need to be successful. I mean, if
Speaker 2: we're talking about senior women, you could ask for things
Speaker 2: like coaches and external support. So negotiate those things as
Speaker 2: you kind of land your deal, because if you know,
Speaker 2: like a culture, you're going to be one of the
Speaker 2: only I think that's an okay thing to say. I need,
Speaker 2: you know, I just want to make sure I'm supported
Speaker 2: and I have what I need to succeed. I also
Speaker 2: think this is a little bit of you know, when
Speaker 2: I first wrote the book, it's funny like the title
Speaker 2: wist day or Go, and people tell me you can't
Speaker 2: be telling everyone to go, although two years later maybe
Speaker 2: I can. Right. I think we are a place where
Speaker 2: everyone's asking, you know, what do they really want to do?
Speaker 2: What's the space that work takes up in our life?
Speaker 2: And I think it's okay to say that certain companies
Speaker 2: are not conducive or supportive for women of color, just period,
Speaker 2: end of sentence. They are not. And so many of
Speaker 2: the women of color are going and creating their own
Speaker 2: companies that I know, because they're trying to create different
Speaker 2: cultures that are friendly for us. And so I also
Speaker 2: think that is a real thing. And so it's a
Speaker 2: little bit of making sure not only the companies friendly,
Speaker 2: but the department and the person you're going to be
Speaker 2: working for is also to your point, right you kind
Speaker 2: of share this in your own story, like that person
Speaker 2: really influences your day to day and how it feels,
Speaker 2: and so asking questions about that person is also something
Speaker 2: that can be helpful and insightful and important to do too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I accidentally want a little baby viral on TikTok
Speaker 1: because I shared a video and it was like three
Speaker 1: questions you should ask during an interview, And it was
Speaker 1: meant to be kind of jokey about how companies will
Speaker 1: they'll do things like make Juneteenth a company holiday and
Speaker 1: they'll appoint a head of inclusion of diversity. But if
Speaker 1: you ask them so, how many women of color are
Speaker 1: at the VP level or above? And then things get
Speaker 1: really quiet and awkward, and I started, I really didn't
Speaker 1: start incorporating that into the questions I asked in my
Speaker 1: last year of Corporate America. Who knows? Maybe I'll go
Speaker 1: back who knows? But and I encourage women to ask that,
Speaker 1: and some of the responses, where can you ask that?
Speaker 1: Is this even seen as an okay question? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know the fact that we're asking, and if you're
Speaker 1: coming in at at a senior level like that VP
Speaker 1: or above. I mean the fact that you were asking.
Speaker 1: I feel like recruiters should know that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: going to become as important. I feel like to have
Speaker 1: stats to share on how successful diverse employees are. It's
Speaker 1: going to become as important to have those stats as
Speaker 1: it is to have unlimited PTO and free lunch.
Speaker 2: I can't really agree. I just did a conversation. You know,
Speaker 2: I get called by recruiters all the time, and I
Speaker 2: usually pass them to other people because, like you, I
Speaker 2: am not looking at the moment. But that was one
Speaker 2: of my questions I said before I were for another
Speaker 2: woman of color? Can you tell me how many you
Speaker 2: know senior women of color? Or can you tell me
Speaker 2: these three questions? Right? How many there are?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Where does the chief inclusion officer report into? I mean
Speaker 2: it sounds like similar questions you ask, like you know
Speaker 2: you know? Is what is the entry level? And what
Speaker 2: you know? I asked a question about mid level and
Speaker 2: the recruiters that I can't answer any of those questions.
Speaker 2: Those are good questions. Well, I said, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to give you another woman of color's name unless you
Speaker 2: can come back to me with those answers. You know
Speaker 2: that that could be just maybe you didn't ask. But
Speaker 2: if the company doesn't have that information, then I don't
Speaker 2: know that I'm going to refer a friend or a
Speaker 2: sister like that makes no sense either. So I think
Speaker 2: those are all real things. I think the other part
Speaker 2: I want to just say is there's also you know,
Speaker 2: I have a line in the book, and I've really
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time. So I spent eight months
Speaker 2: off really figuring out if I could go back, Like
Speaker 2: if I was healthy, did I want that to be
Speaker 2: my identity? There's a lot tied into like being a
Speaker 2: partner was my entire identity, and I'd sacrificed a lot
Speaker 2: to get to that seat. But I realized I probably
Speaker 2: if I was going to go back, would do the
Speaker 2: job differently. And I think that's also really important to
Speaker 2: talk about that. I think there are ways that we
Speaker 2: can also perform in roles and to your point, ask
Speaker 2: more questions, do more things. I wouldn't probably go back
Speaker 2: and do that job and give it as much of
Speaker 2: myself as I had. I would have set clearer boundaries.
Speaker 2: I would have maybe not conformed on certain behavior where
Speaker 2: early on it didn't feel like a big deal. You know.
Speaker 2: Maybe again for me, it was a lot of just
Speaker 2: personal time and how much I sacrificed, and you know,
Speaker 2: how my priorities and how I prioritize things, I might
Speaker 2: make bigger boundaries. And I think had I started that early,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have been such a surprise to do it later.
Speaker 2: But it is a hard thing to do to just
Speaker 2: show up at a senior level and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: then you're setting boundaries. So I think this is a
Speaker 2: little bit of teaching all of us to do it earlier.
Speaker 2: And to your point, if you know early on you
Speaker 2: can't do that, then maybe that's not the right place
Speaker 2: to go because you know you're being set up for
Speaker 2: sacrifice early on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And it's maybe not even a question of and
Speaker 1: this is harder for a recruiter to answer, but okay,
Speaker 1: so if you have a bunch of women of color
Speaker 1: at the BP level above, how many of those women
Speaker 1: are happy? That's not a question you can really get
Speaker 1: from a recruiter. You have to talk to other women.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, I have a couple of thoughts,
Speaker 1: but I feel like even reaching out, if you see
Speaker 1: women of color, you know, thank goodness for LinkedIn even
Speaker 1: just reaching out and saying, hey, I'm actually considering a
Speaker 1: role at your company. I would love to, you know,
Speaker 1: have a chat for fifteen minutes, just ask about your
Speaker 1: experience and try to get some candid insights into how
Speaker 1: women there are doing and are they happy. Because I
Speaker 1: think what I think is beautiful about you know, up
Speaker 1: and coming career women is that we are not as
Speaker 1: accepting of that cut throat sacrifice everything, you know, claw
Speaker 1: and scratch away the top lifestyle. We want a softer life.
Speaker 1: We want success and wealth, and we don't want to
Speaker 1: have to sacrifice our mental, physical health, our family, our interests,
Speaker 1: our passions, you know what I mean. And I think
Speaker 1: for those of us who have kind of seen it,
Speaker 1: I mean you certainly too. I mean you look back
Speaker 1: even now and you say for a twenty year career,
Speaker 1: like okay, I would go back and do things differently.
Speaker 1: I would hope for women approaching their career today that
Speaker 1: they could listen to that advice, take it, but not
Speaker 1: think that they have to settle for less, that they
Speaker 1: have to not go for those top positions. It's just
Speaker 1: going for them, but recognizing and putting those boundaries in
Speaker 1: place so that you don't have to sacrifice yourself necessarily
Speaker 1: along the way to get there.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of you know what I found.
Speaker 2: You know, I talked about personal power. That's what the
Speaker 2: book is about. It is all these women who said,
Speaker 2: I don't want that kind of power. I want to
Speaker 2: do it differently. But we've not been taught always how
Speaker 2: to do it differently. And some of this is realizing
Speaker 2: for ourselves what our boundaries are. What do we need
Speaker 2: to be healthy and happy? Like, what is it that
Speaker 2: we want and we need? And we've never, I think,
Speaker 2: been given permission to ask those questions of ourselves sometimes
Speaker 2: and we haven't. Really we don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2: So it's really I think, in some cases, before you
Speaker 2: go into your next job, before you go into your
Speaker 2: next thing, sitting down and making a list like what
Speaker 2: made you happy in your last job, what don't you want?
Speaker 2: What do you want more of? What is truly going
Speaker 2: to make you thrive? And then you know, finding ways
Speaker 2: to ask those questions in a really different way during
Speaker 2: the interview. But this is so much of I think
Speaker 2: us knowing what we need and want and then finding
Speaker 2: ways to make sure we get what we need and
Speaker 2: want and then it's okay to need and want things.
Speaker 2: I mean, mean, that's really where we have to start,
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of the women that I interviewed,
Speaker 2: we're not taught that, you know, We're just taught to
Speaker 2: push through and survive and do more and work four
Speaker 2: times as hard as right comes up so many times.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a different like we're asking new questions.
Speaker 2: We don't want to just keep doing that. It's not
Speaker 2: good for us and it's not good for the next generation.
Speaker 2: So how do we start to do power differently? How
Speaker 2: do we start to set boundaries now so that we
Speaker 2: can change work so that we get more to the many, right,
Speaker 2: not just the fuse that. I think that's really what
Speaker 2: the work is right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of chuckling in my head right now
Speaker 1: because my baby cousin lives with me. She's my she's
Speaker 1: my mother's helper, she's my just everything. She was my
Speaker 1: assistant for a hot minute, not a great one, but anyway,
Speaker 1: So but she got, she got because she knows me
Speaker 1: too well anyway. But she just got a new job
Speaker 1: as an executive assistant to a mom and pop fashion
Speaker 1: label in our area. And I remember she's only done
Speaker 1: the job for two weeks. And over the weekend she
Speaker 1: came to me and she had these like big scary
Speaker 1: eyes and she's like, Mandy, is this what it's like?
Speaker 1: My boss just texted me. It's eight o'clock on a Saturday.
Speaker 1: He texted me. He texted me, I don't want to
Speaker 1: take text on the weekend. And I was said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, you don't respond to that text until
Speaker 1: eight thirty am on Monday, which is usually when she
Speaker 1: gets into work. And I was just like really intense
Speaker 1: with her, like if you give me your phone, do
Speaker 1: not respond to that text. And I was like this this,
Speaker 1: and I was she was like, calm down, but I
Speaker 1: was like, this is this is when it happens. This
Speaker 1: is when you stop. You know, you don't put a
Speaker 1: barrier in your way, and then two years from now
Speaker 1: you're like, he's he's showing up on your front door,
Speaker 1: you know, with a work emergency and you don't know
Speaker 1: how your life became this way. But yeah, I'm good
Speaker 1: for her generation. You know that the Generation Z or
Speaker 1: whatever she is, allennial who are kind of starting to
Speaker 1: get it, starting to get it. But I think we
Speaker 1: still need one another to like check each other when
Speaker 1: we when we start to forget, you know, what's really
Speaker 1: important and what really matters. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Because I did. I did talk to I call them
Speaker 2: less tenured women. I did talk to that generation. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I think they know more than we knew that they
Speaker 2: want a different life and that they want to set
Speaker 2: those boundaries. What's interesting is they don't know to your point,
Speaker 2: if they can, and so I think more of us
Speaker 2: need to say yes, don't answer that Phonte, you know,
Speaker 2: don't text back right now, Wait till monday. It's okay.
Speaker 2: I think they want to do it differently, but they
Speaker 2: need the encouragement and the permission to do it differently.
Speaker 2: So it's still there. I don't think they're fully there
Speaker 2: where they're not going to respond. I think they know
Speaker 2: maybe there's a different choice, but we need to help
Speaker 2: them or remind them or you know, implore upon them.
Speaker 2: Don't respond a Saturday night, Wait till monday. So what
Speaker 2: you did is what we need to do more of.
Speaker 1: And mentorship, like I mean, I think that that is
Speaker 1: such a missing piece from so many companies, is when
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of time trying to recruit more
Speaker 1: diverse talent, but then who's kind of taking them under
Speaker 1: their wing and helping show them a healthy way of
Speaker 1: succeeding in a healthy way of moving through the company,
Speaker 1: And what sort of systems do you have in place
Speaker 1: to support them. That is a huge missing piece, and
Speaker 1: I think some companies, maybe few and far between, are
Speaker 1: are doing it. But if you're at a place where
Speaker 1: maybe you feel like you don't have that kind of support,
Speaker 1: then take it on yourself to find those support systems,
Speaker 1: to find those programs. Like Dipa said, oh Man, I
Speaker 1: used to love making my company pay for like executive
Speaker 1: leadership seminars and coaching and all kinds of stuff. They'll
Speaker 1: say yes, especially if they're like, oh, I don't have
Speaker 1: to do this myself. I can just give you five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and problem solved, you know, let them spend
Speaker 1: their money on it. That's how I feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also think we can be peersty you know,
Speaker 2: coaches and peers for each other. I think that's also
Speaker 2: part of the magic and what we're seeing. So, you know,
Speaker 2: information is only a year old, and I may have
Speaker 2: shared this when we chatted, but just a quarter into
Speaker 2: our programming, we found that twenty five percent of our
Speaker 2: women ask for bigger jobs or more money or left
Speaker 2: their roles as a result of seeing others kind of
Speaker 2: stand in their power. And it wasn't anything magical that
Speaker 2: Ron and I were teaching. It was just they saw
Speaker 2: each other do it, and they're like, well, if she
Speaker 2: can do it, then I'm going to do it. And
Speaker 2: there's something to that. And because we're so isolated, because
Speaker 2: we're one of the onlies in our companies, we don't
Speaker 2: get to see other examples and other women of color
Speaker 2: asking their worth and standing in their space and all
Speaker 2: of those things. And so I think it's also to
Speaker 2: your point, I think we need each other to just
Speaker 2: just to be reminded of that too.
Speaker 1: Hell's yeah, well where can people find out more about you,
Speaker 1: Deepa and find out about information and the book and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my website's probably the best place because everything's there,
Speaker 2: so Deepa Peru d e p A p U r
Speaker 2: u dot com, the information about the book and the
Speaker 2: wait list for information. We interview all women, not that
Speaker 2: we are, you know, trying to sort through, but we
Speaker 2: just want to make sure that the women that we
Speaker 2: have part of the community know how to hold space
Speaker 2: for each other and can make space for others, and
Speaker 2: so we will. We will set up a time to
Speaker 2: meet you and from there move you forward. If this
Speaker 2: is something you're.
Speaker 1: Interested in exciting, I love it deepa. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining Brown Ambition, and thank you for all
Speaker 1: of the incredible work you're doing. I'm so happy that
Speaker 1: you were able to rescue yourself and get to a
Speaker 1: healthier place and share your many gifts and talents with us,
Speaker 1: because clearly we've all been dying for a voice like yours,
Speaker 1: and I'm just so happy that you've shared it with
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me, and thank you
Speaker 2: for the space you hold. We need more people to
Speaker 2: have conversations like this, so thank you.